For the past 4 years we’ve been building a barn. God willing it’s a structure that will last at least 200 years, maybe more if we did it right. Our names will be long forgotten and much of our “modern” lifestyle will have become obsolete, but maybe someone else will love this space like I do. Barns aren’t often built like this anymore because of the effort and expense involved, but their rugged durability seems worth the trouble. Hopefully, our love and respect for Vermont traditions shows with each board sawn and timber notched.

When I met Mark I didn’t realize he was the kind of man Eric Sloane wrote about “Each man was a woodsman...carpenter...farrier...wheelwright...teacher, artist, and-sometimes-soldier. He had a reverence for excellence, a reverence so profound that all things he did, he did well.”

He needed a barn for his livestock, so he went out into the woods and started work. He calculates silently in his head how many board feet of hemlock while his plans are 99% in his own head except for a scrap of paper with a lumber cut list. He possesses a mass of common sense that has become so uncommon. He knows what he (or his family, farm, or nation) needs and he just does it.